A classic is back

By Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — When local attorney Richard Rhoda was a young man tooling around town in his 1948 Citroen, he may have stirred up as much interest as he does now in that classic and very classy looking black four-door sedan.
     The car’s mileage is measured in kilometers and when Rhoda was in high school he had some fun with his contemporaries who thought the vehicle could go 150 mph until they saw the speedometer hit 60 even though they weren’t going very fast. “They said ‘we’re not going 60,’” explained Rhoda who had to face the fact that his young friends were disabused of the notion that he had a race car.
     Rhoda’s father, Leslie, bought the car as a gift when the younger Rhoda was old enough to get his first driver’s license. The car had first landed in Maine after a master sergeant brought it here from England when he was stationed at the Loring Air Force Base. But, according to Rhoda, at some point in the winter of 1956 or 1957, “the car  broke down in a snowbank in the Haynesville woods for an extended period of time. Two local men got the license plate number and checked through the secretary of state to get the name and address of  the owner.” Rhoda explained that the sergeant was about to be transferred and didn’t think he could get parts. “So, he sold the car to the two men who put a Chevrolet distributor cap on it and it started right up.”
    “The two men brought it to Houlton, fixed it and Dad bought it for $200. But, I found a nickel in the glove compartment  – so it was only 199.95,” said Rhoda with a chuckle. He added that the car was yellow  back then — an appropriate color for a car called a Citroen. “I didn’t know if I had a lemon, or not.”
    But, after only a couple of years, Richard went off to the University of Maine and the Citroen went into storage. It sat in various locations for about 48 years until Rhoda had Tom McAfee overhaul it and tune up the engine.
    When McAfee refinished the body, he told Rhoda there probably had been some fender-benders in the past and there were several layers of paint — black, green and yellow. Rhoda decided to have the car refinished with a new coat of black paint once it had been sanded down and prepped for its new paint job.
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Elna Seabrooks
VINTAGE CAR — Dapper local attorney, Richard Rhoda, says he has been restoring his classic 1948 Citroen sedan with “suicide doors” and eye-catching license plate “A CAPONE.”
    Today the car has “just shy of 73,000 kilometers. So that’s about 48,000 miles,” said Rhoda. He seems to delight in the special features like “suicide doors” also known as rear-hinged or coach doors that are hinged on the edge closer to the rear of the vehicle. Rhoda explained that the car has “air conditioning” because the front windshield rolls out about three inches to let a breeze flow through the car.
    Although he paid for a fitting license plate this year — “A CAPONE,” Rhoda says next year the plate will be different since he likes to change plates every year for that car and his personal vehicle. He won’t give any hints on what’s in store for 2010. But, with a sense of humor like his, it should be good.